The UN weather agency warned Tuesday that there is a fairly good chance of an El Niño climate phenomenon occurring later this year in the Pacific Ocean, which may bring drought and heavy rainfall to the rest of the world.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO)
announced Tuesday that its world weather modeling shows there is
a “fairly large potential for an El Niño, most likely by the
end of the second quarter of 2014.”

“If an El Niño event develops – and it is still too early to
be certain – it will influence temperatures and precipitation and
contribute to draughts and heavy rainfall in different regions of
the world,” WMO chief Michel Jarraud said in a statement.

El Niño occurs every two to seven years, when prevailing trade
winds that circulate surface water in the tropical Pacific start
to weaken. It is characterized by unusually warm ocean surface
temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific.

It has a warming influence on global temperatures and is the
opposite of the La Niña phenomenon, which is associated with
cooling. The last El Niño took place between June 2009 and May
2010. El Niño is often followed by La Niña.

The WMO said that two-thirds of climate models suggested that El
Niño might begin between June and August 2014, with some
suggesting it might start in May. The remainder say that El Niño
will not take place this year.

Neither El Niño nor La Niña are caused by climate change, but
rising ocean temperatures as a result of global warming may
influence their frequency and intensity.

Jarraud warned that combined with human-induced warming from
greenhouse gasses, “El Niño has an important effect on global
average temperatures” and has “the potential to cause a
dramatic rise in global mean temperature.”

Both El Niño and La Niña are at opposite ends of the ENSO cycle,
which refers to the year-to-year variations in sea-surface
temperatures, convective rainfall, surface to air pressure, and
atmospheric circulation that occur across the equatorial Pacific
Ocean.

The term el niño means “the boy” in Spanish, but the
capitalized version refers to Christ because the phenomenon often
develops around Christmas.